Seven


Anthony Bruno - 1995
    Mismatched partner cops Somerset and Mills are on the trail of a psychotic murderer who intends to avenge the seven deadly sins, starting with gluttony.

Madame Doubtfire


Anne Fine - 1987
    Their parents' divorce has not made family life any easier in either home. The children bounce to and from their volatile mother, Miranda, and their out-of-work actor father, Daniel. Then Miranda advertises for a cleaning lady who will look after and mind the children after work - and Daniel gets the job, disguised as Madame Doubtfire. This bittersweet, touching and extremely funny book inspired the highly successful film "Mrs Doubtfire", starring Robin Williams

Parsnips, Buttered: How to baffle, bamboozle and boycott your way through modern life


Joe Lycett - 2016
    We are a bombarded generation: Facebook, billboards, Twitter, Instagram, taxes, newspapers, watches monitoring our sleep, apps that read our pulse, terrorism. There's such an onslaught to the senses these days it's a marvel any of us manage to get out of bed. I love bed. While we are overwhelmed and confused by the miasmic cloud of information, there are those that seek to take advantage: there are parking fines, hate Tweets, Nigerian email scams and Christmas newsletters from old school friends about their ugly kids. And just as we're getting round to doing something about it, we're distracted again. I, Joe Lycett, comedian, wordsmith, and professional complainer, am here to help. During my short life of doing largely nothing I've discovered solutions to many of life's problems, which I impart to you, dear Reader. Containing a centurion of complaint letters to unsuspecting celebrities, companies and anyone brave enough to clog up my phone, as well as illustrations, one-liners , jokes and life hacks, this little gem offers you a collection of tips and advice* for all manner of modern woe. By the time you have finished reading this book you will have learnt how to: - Reverse a parking fine - Manipulate the tabloid press - Navigate social media - Respond to hate mail - Out-weird internet trolls - Contest a so-called ripe avocado - Send the perfect Christmas newsletter - Defeat ISIS - Take down multi-national companiesAND MUCH, MUCH MORE! Joe Lycett x * If you are looking for guidance with taxes, quitting smoking, moving house, love, divorce, education, healthcare or anything actually important may I recommend speaking to friends or family members and not consulting a book by a comedian who eats halloumi at least twice a day.

Goodfellas: Screenplay


Nicholas Pileggi - 1990
    Young Henry dreams that one day he too might be a professional 'wiseguy' - a 'goodfella'. His wishes come true with remarkable speed once he teams up with renowned hoodlum Jimmy Conway and his alarmingly psychotic pal Tommy DeVito. Henry embarks on an everyday life of crime which takes him from rags to gaudy riches, in and out of the federal penitentiary and under the unwelcome spotlight of the FBI. As the 1970s turn sour Henry finds himself at the sharp end of the cocaine trade, increasingly adrift from his extended mobster 'family' and forced to make a tough decision about his future . . .The film that re-established Martin Scorsese's eminence among American directors after years of professional difficulties, GoodFellas is a tour de force which lays bare the crude and venal motives which drive a happy band of thieves and murderers.

Peter and Alice


John Logan - 2013
    Enchantment and reality collide at a 1932 meeting between Alice Liddell Hargreaves, the original Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Llewelyn Davies, the original Peter Pan. Peter and Alice, which opened on London's West End in March 2013, stars Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw.

Storm of the Century


Stephen King - 1999
    The residents of Little Tall Island have seen their share of nasty Maine Nor'easters, but this one is different. Not only is it packing hurricane-force winds and up to five feet of snow, it's bringing something worse. Something even the islanders have never seen before. Something no one wants to see.Just as the first flakes begin to fall, Martha Clarendon, one of Little Tall Island's oldest residents, suffers an unspeakably violent death. While her blood dries, Andre Linoge, the man responsible sits calmly in Martha's easy chair holding his cane topped with a silver wolf's head...waiting.Linoge knows the townsfolk will come to arrest him. He will let them. For he has come to the island for one reason. And when he meets Constable Mike Anderson, his beautiful wife and child, and the rest of Little Tall's tight-knit community, this stranger will make one simple propoisition to them all: "If you give me what I want, I'll go away."

The Rachel Papers


Martin Amis - 1973
    On the brink of twenty, Charles High-way preps desultorily for Oxford, cheerfully loathes his father, and meticulously plots the seduction of a girl named Rachel -- a girl who sorely tests the mettle of his cynicism when he finds himself falling in love with her.

The Wolf of Wall Street


Jordan Belfort - 2007
    By night he spent it as fast as he could, on drugs, sex, and international globe-trotting. From the binge that sank a 170-foot motor yacht and ran up a $700,000 hotel tab, to the wife and kids waiting at home, and the fast-talking, hard-partying young stockbrokers who called him king and did his bidding, here, in his own inimitable words, is the story of the ill-fated genius they called . . .THE WOLF OF WALL STREETIn the 1990s Jordan Belfort, former kingpin of the notorious investment firm Stratton Oakmont, became one of the most infamous names in American finance: a brilliant, conniving stock-chopper who led his merry mob on a wild ride out of the canyons of Wall Street and into a massive office on Long Island. Now, in this astounding and hilarious tell-all autobiography, Belfort narrates a story of greed, power, and excess that no one could invent.Reputedly the prototype for the film Boiler Room, Stratton Oakmont turned microcap investing into a wickedly lucrative game as Belfort’s hyped-up, coked-out brokers browbeat clients into stock buys that were guaranteed to earn obscene profits—for the house. But an insatiable appetite for debauchery, questionable tactics, and a fateful partnership with a breakout shoe designer named Steve Madden would land Belfort on both sides of the law and into a harrowing darkness all his own.From the stormy relationship Belfort shared with his model-wife as they ran a madcap household that included two young children, a full-time staff of twenty-two, a pair of bodyguards, and hidden cameras everywhere—even as the SEC and FBI zeroed in on them—to the unbridled hedonism of his office life, here is the extraordinary story of an ordinary guy who went from hustling Italian ices at sixteen to making hundreds of millions. Until it all came crashing down . . .

The Boys in the Band


Mart Crowley - 1968
    . . [Mart] Crowley's point is about how the humor is shaped and defined by the pain."-The New York TimesThe Boys in the Band was the first commercially successful play to reveal gay life to mainstream America. Alyson is proud to release a special fortieth anniversary edition of the play, which includes an original preface by acclaimed writer Tony Kushner (Angels in America), along with previously unpublished photographs of Mart Crowley and the cast of the play/film.Mart Crowley's other plays include the autobiographical A Breeze from the Gulf (1973) and The Men from the Boys (2002).

The Breakfast Club


John Hughes - 1992
    The storyline follows five teenagers (each a member of a different high school cliques) as they spend a Saturday in detention together and come to realize that they are all deeper than their respective stereotypes.

Three Colors Trilogy: Blue, White and Red


Krzysztof Kieślowski - 1992
    In these films, based on the colors of the French flag and the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity--the three ideals of the French Revolution--Kieslowski has crafted three parables of contemporary existence. In "Blue," Julie loses her child and husband in a car crash. In order to shield herself from the intensity of her grief, she strips away all remnants of her former life. This attempt is doomed to failure as music inexorably brings her back to a purpose in life. In "White," Karol, a Polish hairdresser, is divorced and abandoned by his beautiful French wife and finds himself destitute on the Paris streets. He meets a fellow Pole, who ingeniously smuggles him back to Warsaw in a suitcase. Working on the black market, he soon rises to the top of Poland's emerging capitalist class. Still obsessively haunted by the image of his wife, Karol sets out to make her pay the price for her betrayal. The third and final part of the trilogy, "Red," explores a strange, tentative relationship that gradualy grows between a beautiful young model and an embittered, retired judge. It is through the wisdom of her innocence that he finds the courage to engage with life again. Kieslowski brings the trilogy to a close with an event that weaves the disparate threads into a seamless work of art.

Riding in Cars with Boys


Beverly Donofrio - 1990
    I'm not blaming it on President Kennedy's assassination or its being the beginning of the sixties or the Vietnam War or The Beatles. The trouble I'm talking about was my first real trouble, the age-old trouble. The getting in trouble as in Is she in trouble? trouble. As in pregnant. As in the girl who got pregnant in high school. Beverly Ann Donofrio wasn't bad because she hung out with hoods - she was bad because she was a hood.

Tales from Shakespeare


Charles Lamb - 1807
    Presents an introduction to Shakespeare's greatest plays including Hamlet Othello, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest and Pericles.

Top Girls


Caryl Churchill - 1982
    Told by an eclectic group of historical and modern characters in a continuous conversation across ages and generations, Top Girls was hailed as 'the best British play ever from a woman dramatist' by The Guardian.

Love Her Wild


Atticus Poetry - 2017
    With honesty, poignancy, and romantic flair, Atticus distills the most exhilarating highs and the heartbreaking lows of life and love into a few perfectly evocative lines, ensuring that his words will become etched in your mind—and will awaken your sense of adventure.